Presidential Election 2012: Analysis From a Space Alien

In this article I am going to present a rather unique way of interpreting the recent election results. I'm going to present them from the point of view of a space alien philosopher. I'm choosing to use this point of view because it is completely disconnected from any cultural programming. I want you to think outside the box. I want you to try and think about what I'm saying in a way that a person who is completely unfamiliar with human political systems would view them.

*dons space alien hat*

As a space alien, I find human democratic political systems to be very interesting, but they don't seem to make much sense to me. Humans seem to love democracy, but it seems like a rather repressive system of social organization to me. The vast majority of humans seem to agree that the majority of people should be able to impose their will upon the minority, and that this should be accomplished through a system of voting and political organization. However, they do this in a rather odd way. Rather than the public voting on each and every law that is passed, they instead vote for a small handful of people who then go on to create hundreds of thousands of laws that everyone else must obey. But what I really don't understand about the whole "voting" thing is that they don't seem play by their own rules.

From my orbiting spaceship, I'm able to connect to their internet. While researching human political systems I came across a website by George Mason University. The site tracks voter turnout for general and primary elections. According to the site, only 61.6% of eligible voters voted in the 2008 general election. I suspect we will see similar numbers (or lower) this time around as well. Doing the math, if roughly half of the voting public voted for Obama and half voted for McCain, that means their were more people "voting" for "none of the above" than either of the two candidates, yet their votes don't seem to count at all. If humans actually believed that majority rule was the proper way to organize society, then how could they ignore the huge numbers of people who don't seem to want anyone running their lives at all? Shouldn't the humans give up these rather ridiculous political systems all together if most people vote for "none of the above" every election?

Further, I don't understand all the squabbling humans engage in over what appear to be rather petty issues. The major political candidates agree on everything of seeming importance, but their political supporters become furious over petty things like tax cuts for people making over $250,000 dollars an earth year, which hardly any humans manage to earn.

Speaking of taxes, here's another rather insane system that all humans seem to think is necessary to organize their societies. Where I come from, if someone used threats or violence to take another person's property, our security forces would be on top of them immediately! Yet the humans organize virtually all of their societies around this principle! From my point of view, the human political parties are what we refer to as criminal mafia organizations. Everything in the human political systems seem to have different words for them, and by assigning things different words, the humans automatically accept a different moral connotation to the actions those words are assigned to.

For example, humans become outraged at mass murderers, but when a mass murder is called war, they all line up to participate! Humans become outraged at theft, but when theft is called taxation, they all fork over their money with no questions asked. Humans become outraged at fraud, but when fraud is called quantitative easing, they cheer it as if it will improve the lives of everyone! There is an endless list of moral inversions based simply on what word they chose to call the same action. I don't understand this at all.

Where I come from, each person "votes" by voluntarily giving their money and resources to the security and justice systems they like the most. If I don't like the services that are being provided by one organization, I take my money elsewhere. In fact, many of my alien friends chose not to pay for security or court insurance at all. Instead, they chose to protect themselves and pay out of pocket for those services as they might need them. There's a lot of space alien security services out there to chose from, so I always get a great bargain for my money. What interests me is that the humans seem to recognize the benefits of this free market system too, but they reject it when it comes to politics! According to the Reuters website, there are more private security guards than political police! Hmmmm, isn't that a sign that their police forces must not be doing a good job of protecting their property? Why would they continue to support a system that doesn't even provide the services that they are being taxed for?

It has become clear to me that many humans support these mafia-like political systems because these mafias provide welfare services to poor people and the elderly. But what I don't understand is why they would support a political system to provide these services when the political system they advocate for uses the money for all sorts of other heinous acts? If a person stole money from people and used part of the stolen booty to help old people, but then turned around and used the rest of it to engage in acts of mass murder, would they consider his behavior to be morally acceptable? Further, the old people seem to support these political systems the most, but the political systems are simply stealing the money they are getting from their own grandchildren! How morally reprehensible is that?

I recently came across a human economist that thinks the way we aliens do. It was quite refreshing to listen to his lectures. His name is David Friedman He gave a talk entitled "The Machinery of Freedom" that pretty much explains how our space alien system of security and justice operate. Perhaps one day humans will evolve their political systems into a peaceful one that is more like our own.

Michael Suede is an Austrian economist and author who holds a business degree from the University of Wisconsin. Michael's articles have appeared in numerous economics publications. Michael is also one of the few economists who is well versed in the economics of voluntary crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.
Michael is a veteran of the US Navy and an advocate of voluntarism.
Michael authorizes the use of all his content under Public Domain copyright. Any organization or individual may freely republish, edit, modify and distribute Michael's works without restrictions.